Re: Best tasting notes EVER!

Originally Posted by ebo

Agreed. I just find it ridiculous when I read descriptors like "wet pavement". How the hell does anyone know what wet pavement tastes like? Did they go outside and lick the road? Or, "dried seaweed with a touch of model airplane glue". Really? And one of my all time favorites............. an "old leather chair". Who licks a damn chair to know how it tastes? Just sayin'.

Yeah. It's kinda nuts. I was just reading the book Predictably Irrational. In about the middle of the text, the topic is the effect of expectations on experience. Someone at the SMWS is clearly knowledgeable on the psychology of marketing. I can imagine someone in the room with the tasting panel filling out a Mad Libs template.

Re: Best tasting notes EVER!

Originally Posted by The Boozer

What does S#!t taste like? Explain your tasting experience.

I knew I set my self up for that question. I'll admit I have no experience with tasting in an oral sense. But I do have had a great deal of olfactory exposure to a wide variety of examples from many sources.

Re: Best tasting notes EVER!

I do have to admit the younger folks who say things taste like excrement or the place it comes from, or other interesting locations/flavors, always makes me laugh. And yes, I have inadvertently tasted some of those items. Mostly due to farming "accidents".

"this hobby is supposed to be fun. When it stops being fun, check yourself, because you're doing it wrong." Charles Cowdery

Re: Best tasting notes EVER!

Re: Best tasting notes EVER!

It's okay to use some imagination in tasting notes. If I think something tastes like dirt, I will say it tastes like dirt, even if I've never tasted dirt.

On the other hand, I think using more than five or so descriptors for the smell or taste of a whisky is pointless. Choose the ones which best represent the experience; leave the rest out. Otherwise you lose the essence of it. I think it was our friend Davin who once used about fifteen different descriptors for a whisky, after which he commented that it was not very complex.

The worst was a fellow named Dr. Whisky, who said in his review of McLelland Islay that it contained "a touch of dog poo." And it was meant to be a POSITIVE reivew! Once you've detected dog poo in your whisky, you might as well forget about ever enjoying it again.

Re: Best tasting notes EVER!

I wish I could take credit for those notes, but alas, like the notes say, Serge Valentin is the author of that masterpiece. I don't have the ability to taste colors. At least not without the use of psychedelic drugs....